why does it hurt so much?

[afeastofstarlight]

She was still covered in rock dust. She tasted it and the ghost of blood in her mouth. They had told her that his body would need to be prepared for burial. They had likely said it as kindly as they could, but all Tauriel could feel and understand was that he was growing colder, and without the warmth from her own hands he would soon be pale and still as stone. That was to be the end of him.

But the runestone was still warm. It had been warm when he had given it to her, heated from his own body, and she had never let it grow cold since. She did not realize she had kept it – she had meant to leave it in his hand, or had she? – until she was walking through the rocky hillside, and then she was running, or at least trying to run with her injuries. She could force her body, now, even though it made her angry to think that it had failed her when she had needed it most – how, no matter how hard she'd tried, she could not get up from the ground to stop Kíli's death blow.

Could she disappear into the mountains? She wanted escape, and maybe she wanted to descend deep down into the stone, away from the light. While her home had been carved from rock in Mirkwood, it was open, not contained and stuffy. She didn't like the idea of going too deep underground, but now she found the idea of it heartening. Not out of despair, but out of an urge to feel closer to a dwarf she had suddenly lost.

And then suddenly, she was lost.

The people – so many people. And the noise. Nothing to the crash of battle and yet too much for her to deal with. It was easy, at least, not to be noticed; easy to be ignored and therefore easier to ignore what was going on around her. She had been inside of a building, so strange and foreign to her, and while it did not occur to her to feel terrified – she felt beyond that – she did not like it.

There was no mountain but there was sky. She knelt on a hilly piece of land, in the dark, away from the festivities. She took bracing breaths of chilly air, and looked up. Hours she spent, considering what had happened but not caring. She knew something foreign and untoward had occurred, and she had stepped beyond what she knew. The fireworks were abrupt and explosive and startled her, but the cheering from the guests told her to take it calmly, and she did. Still she hunkered at the outskirts of the revel, until the noise began to die down, the music stopped, the people slowly trickled away and the grounds were quiet.

She felt empty, but really she was just alone. She ought to tend to her wounds, and yet it did not occur to her. Let everything fester, let her wither away. She palmed the runestone in her hand; it felt much heavier, more formed, than the rest of her body. Tauriel thought she was done with crying, but she wasn't. At the very least, though, she wept silently, as she waited for the dawn.

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[afeastofstarlight]

Quite foolishly, for a moment, Tauriel questioned her own existence. Perhaps she really was nothing but a vision herself, a ghost; she had faded away from the land she knew and had appeared in this strange new one. But then she palmed the runestone still in her hand, firmly ran her thumb over the ridges of the engravings, and remembered herself.

Though tears still glinted on her cheeks, her face stilled beneath them. He looked battered and bruised, as much as she. He was there, and life pulsed in him, present and undeniable, bright as a star. Her heart contracted; she didn't know what to feel, could not understand how anyone could make any sense out of what was going on, and she was afraid. But, at the very least, the pain she had experienced had numbed her somewhat, and she was prepared now for a fresh onslaught.

"Yes," she answered, her voice a soft whisper, like wind in the leaves. "I am real."

[line_of_durin]

Tense with hope, Kili's gaze caught on the flicker of Tauriel's fingers and held there, his eyes rounding as the breath pushed abruptly from his lungs. He jerked a baldly astonished look up to her face, the whisper of a smile fleetingly pulling at the corners of his mouth.

"You kept it."

He couldn't imagine what it meant, if she'd believed him dead yet still carried such a token. Return to me. Maybe the stone was more talisman than either of them could have known.

For the first time he noticed the cuts upon her cheeks, how labored her breathing, and his face fell as he took half a step forward.

"You're hurt," he quickly said, eyes soft with worry.

[afeastofstarlight]

She followed his gaze to the stone still in her hand, and it took all of her power not to clench her fingers around it. Yes, she had kept it. She didn't know why. Perhaps because it was the only thing she could cling to, once they had taken him from her sight.

Except they hadn't, because he was here. She hesitated. How foolish she was being; she had cherished how freely she had been able to speak with him before, had been pleased and comforted and exalted by his presence. The unknown had always thrilled her, but she had begun to understand that she had never truly pressed herself with it. He was strange and different and suddenly he had become too close. Legolas had seemed to understand better what was occurring than she had.

"Would you like it back?" she asked. Maybe he did. She truly did not know. Her injuries were unimportant, compared to him, however, and she was almost surprised he brought them up. She angled her head, slightly, to the side, as she looked at him. She wanted to draw near just as much as she wanted to pull away, so she stood still.

"You are not," she observed, though her voice brimmed with enough hope that it made it a real question.

[line_of_durin]

"No," Kili replied of the stone, and managed a slightly more substantial smile. "It's your promise now."

As she continued, he looked down to his chest, feeling again over the tear in the fabric of his shirt. His leg still ached and he suspected having several cracked ribs in addition to his bruises, but those injuries were not the ones she meant.

"I'm not," he confirmed, and glanced back up to her face. "But you need tending."

She must have come from shortly after he died, he realized then, and with a jolt it occurred to him for the first time that he might not be the only one of them dead. Fili did not remember falling, did not believe this to be the afterlife, but Kili had seen his brother's death with his own eyes.

"The orc—?" he began, suddenly tense again. She had been badly injured, and with no one left to aid in her defense.

[afeastofstarlight]

It's your promise now. He might not have meant it to be, but it was another one of his little pushes that had her suddenly nervous, but not unpleasantly so. Just awkward and unsure, nearly blushing but not.

“Bolg is dead,” she confirmed, realizing what it was he was really asking as she spoke. If he remembered the orc, then he remembered that he had died, as well (and she was willing to put aside her confusion that he was alive now, for the time being). It had been only moments between his intervening in the fight and then his death, but they had been precious in that they had saved her. But he wouldn't know that unless she told him, and he deserved to know.

“He was brought down by Lord Legolas,” she explained. It still rubbed her raw, that she had not been able to avenge Kíli. That when she awoke, she had barely the strength to drag herself back to his body, let alone aid her friend. “He saved me. As did you,” she added, placing her hand to her chest (feeling, remembering, ignoring, her collarbone) and dipping her head. “I am grateful.”

[line_of_durin]

Legolas. Of course. Kili knew he ought to be grateful, and on some level he imagined that he was, but it was difficult not to show his consternation. The Elf prince was always there, somehow, lurking right over Tauriel's shoulder like a nursemaid or jilted lover—

Ah. Kili quickly ducked his head and bit against the smile that wanted to make an entirely inappropriate appearance. They were talking about Orcs and death and very serious matters; this wasn't a time for smiling.

"I'm glad he was there," he said, and cleared his throat. Schooling his expression, he tipped a look back up to her. "I'm glad that you're not...you know."

It was so easy to think of himself as dead, but for her he couldn't say it, couldn't let himself even consider its possibility.

"But I'm sorry that you were injured on my account. I would never wish that for you."

[afeastofstarlight]

Tauriel knew that there was friction, but she saw no reason in trying to pretend Legolas was not involved. He was a part of her life; and when it boiled down to it, he had accompanied her up the mountain to warn Thorin and his company, just as she had gone with him to Gundabad. He had put as much into the dwarves as she had, and she would be forever grateful for that loyalty.

"He came with me, to try to warn you," she explained. Of course, that was just a reminder that she had failed in her task; a smile flinched across her face, trying to conceal her consternation.

"If I feared pain, then I would be a poor excuse for a warrior," she answered, instead. "But I am... sorry." Sorry, because she had not been able to take Bolg herself. Because she had saved Kíli three times, but on the fourth she had failed. Because even now she could not seem to act in a way that was right or correct and instead stood there with his runestone in her hand, acting like his return from the dead was not the joyous occasion it truly was. And because the only time she had kissed him had been in his death.

[line_of_durin]

Perhaps it was their fundamental differences as Elf and Dwarf that made all of this so awkward. The stiffness sat upon Kili poorly, a suit made two sizes too small which he was nonetheless behaving as if fit him perfectly well. When had he cared about propriety? When had he cared about being polite? Had he been concerned overmuch with either of those things, they'd likely not be here to begin with.

"Here we are, both of us sorry," he quickly said, a tense attempt at levity, and took another step Tauriel's way. She was close enough to touch and he nearly reached out, the impulse a mad itch beneath his skin, but fear of her reaction stayed his hand.

"There are many things which happened that I'm not at all sorry for," he added, more quietly.

[afeastofstarlight]

She didn't want to be this way. She wanted that easy freedom again, the ability to do whatever she wanted, held down by nothing and no one - what she'd had before the fear had crept in. When had it arrived? Why? There was no reason to obey it any longer. The danger was gone, now; the battle had ended. She was still, to her knowledge, banished from her homeland. All that was terrible had already occurred, and now it was just her. Uncertain, frightening, yes. But surely she could work through it.

She smiled at him, because she knew what he was trying to do. And also, because he just made her smile, even though he brought out that faint shyness in her. She glanced away from him, eyes dragging along the ground rather than meet his face, and then she looked up to the sky, still bedecked with constellations she had never seen before.

"Will you sit with me awhile?" she asked, lightly. She did not know how much he enjoyed the stars, but she would appreciate his company.

[line_of_durin]

"Yes," Kili was quick to answer. "Of course." His gaze tracked her wandering eye and its reluctance to settle upon him, and he ducked briefly into her field of vision, brown eyes wide with curiosity and concern.

"Are you certain you wouldn't see a healer?" he pressed, but already having an idea of her answer. "They have them inside."

Not that he could claim much knowledge beyond that, having forgone them himself despite Fili's urging.

[afeastofstarlight]

After a pause, in which Tauriel's eyes continued to track the heavens overhead, she glanced over at him again. Her smile was slight but genuine, for she recognized the worry in his questioning.

"I have suffered no poison, nor cut," she said, and momentarily touched her fingertips to the cut just above her eyebrow, remembering it and the small, similar wounds scattered elsewhere, "save these. I will heal with rest." Elves were hardy, more so than their slight figure suggested, and though she ached and throbbed with pain, she knew it would go away. While they could not heal from mortal wounds, others they could recover from with time.

She moved to sit back down, the grass soft and welcoming after having known only the mountainside. She would have inquired towards his health, if not for the fact she still marveled at the life still coursing through him. "I shall rest soon," she said, "if that would ease you."

[line_of_durin]

"I forget sometimes that Elves heal more quickly than Dwarves," Kili offered by way of explanation, but the truth was that had this been anyone else, Elf or otherwise, he'd not have been half so concerned.

"It does make me feel a little better," he allowed, settling beside her as near as he dared, close enough to grasp her hand should boldness seize him, but with space enough that still she might comfortably draw away. The heart of her was easily enough read, but her Elvish self-composure remained a mystery.

"Might you want company while you rest?" he asked, his smile faint but self-indulgent as he watched her, clearly teasing simply for the sake of it. "I could fluff your pillows."